According to data recently released by the Turkish Statistical Institute, more than a million houses were sold in Turkey in 2013 and much of the demand came from foreign buyers. A substantial increase in the number of houses sold has been observed such as from 701,621 in 2012, to 1,157,190 in 2013 and foreigners purchased 12,181 of those real estates and in the purchase procedure, approximately 40% of houses were bought using a loan.
As expected, Antalya has been the most popular province for foreign buyers with 5,548 sales in 2013, followed by Istanbul where 2,447 houses were sold. The other leading provinces were Aydin by 1,112 houses, Mugla by 1,053 houses and Mersin by 545 houses. Director of the one of the UK-based, overseas property specialist stated that “We had a fantastic year in 2013 due to high demand from Middle East, Turkey is close to the Middle East geographically as much culturally. This makes investors eager to buy properties in the country. Istanbul in particular has attracted interest from the Middle East and Europe in 2013 especially for the European side of Istanbul. there is a huge interest in the booming suburbs in areas such as Halkali, Beylikduzu, Bahcesehir and central fashionable districts such as Kadikoy and Levent on both side of the Bosphorus”
The prices of new real estates have risen 13.55% in January compared with the same month of the last year, according to New House Price index by Reidin-GYODER which outperforms the rest of Europe.
Hence, according to statistics, besides being a cultural, touristic and recreational attraction for foreigners, Turkey’s real-estate market is growing and procures a good investment opportunity for foreign purchasers.
